Did you watch Mona El-Shazely interview with Laila Rostom yesterday ??
Man it is the first El-Shazely proved to be weak , the number 1 woman TV host in Egypt for 2006 proves to be very weak in front of this legendary TV host Laila Rostom
Laila Rostom for those who don't know was from the the first ladies who appeared in the Egyptian TV in 1960, she worked there till year 1966 where she used to present a fantastic collection of TV programs and shows ,she hosted celebs , politicians like Andira Gandhi and her , writers,novelists and intellectuals , legends like Taha Hussein and Mary Mounib . after 1966 she moved to Lebanon , where she worked in Tele Lebanon in 1968 for 16 years to present one of the most important TV shows ever in history of Lebanon "an evening with the past" hosting the most important figures of Lebanon to talk about their lives from Pierre El-Jumayal the grand father to Kamal Junbolt whom she admires very much
then she presented a very beautiful important program that was shown across the Arab except Egypt unfortunately I don't know why ,it was called "Between the reality and fancy" discussing the most famous historical figures in the Islamic Arabic history between the reality and the fancy ,I didn't watch that program ,but my mom did when she was in Qatar
after that she stopped working for TV unfortunately
A great sophisticated lady , she spoke so great about Freedom,politics in Egypt and also in Lebanon , she hinted didn't speak frankly after she is used to censorship in Egypt ;)
anyway Mona wasn't in her best mode ever , may be because her guest is a veteran TV host , she couldn't keep up with her
Mona seemed unorganized ,moving from question to another with no arrangement ,interpreting Laila several times
and of course Mona the nasserite couldn't accept any criticize to the golden era even though Laila didn't criticize Nasser on the contrary she praised him
Anyway it was a great episode
P.S some may consider Laila as arrogant high class lady who lives in ivory tower from her talk and criticism to the conditions now in Egypt
My dear Egyptian friends my grand mother doesn't consider her so ,because in the 1950s and 1960s the girls of the upper and high middle class act like her
You want an example MY grand mother
I tend to disagree. I enjoyed the interview very much, and it was far from being a one-side game for any of them. Laila Rustum's comments about Al-Qaher and Al-Zafer, and how she described King Hussain of Jordan were exceptionally hillarious.
ReplyDeleteAre you sure Mona is a Nasserite? I think she tries as much as possible to be professionally neutral when it comes to politics, and as far as I'm concerned I think she's very successful at it.
I've always found her extremely unproffessional and annoying, and have also been equally surprised by the amount of praise she gets from people...maybe our standards have just sunk so low. It's always nice though to see real journalists put things in perspective as you describe, wish I saw the show. It's interesting that you say she is a Nasserist, that explains a lot. Are you sure of this, Zeinoubia?
ReplyDelete@Mustafa ,I agree with you , Laila seemed to talk in a perfect arrangment , while Mona ..... , well she could have done better than that performance
ReplyDelete@Minesweeper76, to tell you the truth sometimes I feel she is neutral and sometimes I feel she is a Nasserite ,the way she interrupted Laila when she was talking about the revolution and Nasser was silly , I had that feeling she having an interview with Yahia El-Fakharany and the later also attacked Nasser in the defeat of 1967
@seneferu ,as I said sometimes I feel she is neutral and sometimes I feel she is from the Nasserite club Yahia El-Fakharany's night was a good example
i was going to write about this interview ya zenab..
ReplyDeletesaba2teni
i didnt like mona el shazli at all! felt her very very very weak.... and not cultured in the same level,, and her languages are nothing compared to laila rostom!
man! hse's 70+ and still very ellegant and fluent keda in her talk...
no wonder that i ended up envying my parents for living in an era everything from head to toe was much more powerful than the most powerful something in our days..
Zeinoubia, can you briefly describe what happened with Yehia el Fakharany please (didn't see that show either, I try not to watch her in general:) Thanks.
ReplyDelete@blue, I am just like you ,I envy those people and that period ,Egypt and Egyptians were really beautiful , beautiful from all the word can mean
ReplyDeleteMona has many years to reach the level of Laila
@seneferu,I rememeber he was talking about politics ,and how since 1967 everything changed for him , he was just speaking saying on the 5th of June he was visiting his sister in Al-Agouza and he came out of the bus hearing the radios about the 700 airfighters were droped and so but he looked to the sky found nothing
and he said important things about the revolution but as soon as she felt he was going to dive in that area and about Nasser ,the one president and so on she cut the talk and turn in to another area
Mustafa, I agree about not categorizing people, but it's not so hard to deduce things with all these different examples we mentioned here.
ReplyDelete@Mustafa ,I don't like to categorize people either and believe if I tell you that my favorite TV host now is Mona El-Shazely , in fact I always loved her since ART but the problem I don't like the interruptions
ReplyDeleteyou know I didn't like her when she made an interview with the hero Mohamed Mahran and told him that he should take a compensation from the British for their torture ,I don't know I didn't like her there and I felt that the hero Mohamed Mahran didn't like that too
Mona is excellent but ending the interview in a certain important point because you don't like that certain point is not a good thing
Look she can act like Eman Goma'a ,if you remember her she used to work in ART but left it after her dad ran for presidency , Dr. Noma'an Goma'a ,who is from El-Wafad ,yet she is a Nasserite "I am sure of that " but I recall she respected everyone and never interrupted anyone because he was going to attack Nasser
Hey...do u guys have any idea about how I can get these kinds of programs and TV shows online? Any website or something like that? I only could manage to get AL JAZEERA from an Australian satellite broadcasting to the Asia-Pacific region.
ReplyDeletethere is an online but not free service ,also they don't have Dream the channel we are talking about
ReplyDeleteit is http://www.jumptv.com/
All there is another site
http://wwitv.com/portal.htm
this free
i agree, laila rostom is my grandmother... i thought she was arrogant too, but then after sitting down and interviewing her for a personality profile i understood why she seems to be arrogant. she came from the golden era, today we are in the brown era...
ReplyDeletemy dear anonymous ,we live in the tin era :(
ReplyDeleteI am from lebanon 40+ years old and Laila rosotm is a powerful image my childhood. How can we see this show again? I would love to see Laila now.
ReplyDeleteAnita
Zeinobia, brown is not the color of tin
ReplyDeleteMy dear MRS Anita, I think you were very lucky to watch this highly sophisticated lady in Lebanon, I am very sorry but I can't find it online now but I promise if I find it , I will post here immediately ,
ReplyDeleteabout the Tin and brown , I meant the metal itself , the gold and the tin , the golden era and the tin era ;)